


what a witch wants

by TheNightbloodSolution



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Sabrina the Teenage Witch Fusion, F/F, F/M, Minor Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Witches, again this wasn't written for halloween but it happens to be halloween so that's fitting, get your harper content here!, god knows there's not enough of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 06:05:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16470167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNightbloodSolution/pseuds/TheNightbloodSolution
Summary: Harper moves to a town in Massachusetts to live with her eccentric aunts Octavia and Niylah who tell her she’s a witch. Yeah, right. She’s got more important things to worry about, like high school.AKA Harper the Teenage Witch.





	what a witch wants

**Author's Note:**

> So, for those of you who don't know, I'm kind of a Sabrina freak, I've been in love with Sabrina the Teenage Witch forever. So when I saw [this tumblr post](https://linctavias.tumblr.com/post/178876487961/harper-the-teenage-witch-day-831), I knew I had to write this because no one else was going to do it.
> 
> A heads up, this is deadass the Pilot of Sabrina starring Harper and Co. so if that seems like something you'd be into, read on!

It’s a foggy Tuesday afternoon when Harper McIntyre moves into an old, Victorian house, which is perfectly normal, on a normal enough street to live with her _reasonably_ normal aunts. It’s the kind of suburb where nothing really happens, other than the changing of the seasons occasionally draping the lawn in snow or fall leaves. Coming from a city, life is slower here, like time is moving at a glacial pace when all Harper wants to do is move.

But she’s suburban now. And she can’t say she hates it.

Her aunts are nice enough, if a little weird. They’re both exhaustingly beautiful, and young, too. Harper asked Octavia her age once, but Niylah just replied for her, “Oh, she’s ancient.” Another time, she asked Niylah how long they’d been married, to which she said, “Thousands of years.” Octavia took the time to call from the next room, “Except for that time we took a break during the Dark Ages!”

Octavia is stern, but fair. She says most things in a deadpan, but Harper _swears_ sometimes she’s telling really dry jokes. For someone who most certainly looks like they could kick your ass by simply glaring at you, she does try to be maternal and braids Harper’s hair the night she moves in. She also spends most of the time she’s braiding to educate Harper on which self defense moves are most effective in incapacitating an attacker, leaving her to idly wonder how many attackers there are in Ark, Massachusetts.

Niylah is… whimsical. She’s the kind of person you catch outside on the porch trying to talk to the birds. Her voice is light and airy, apt for storytelling, really. And she does tell a lot of stories, historical mostly, and they’re so detailed it’s as if she was actually there.

For all their personality, neither of Harper’s aunts is particularly humorous. Which is why it’s so effective when Harper wakes up to a practical joke on her sixteenth birthday.

She’s preparing some toast for breakfast and she makes sure to check the slot before she drops her slice in. (Last time she used the toaster, there was an actual piece of paper stuck in the slot.)

Honestly, she wishes she wasn’t cooking such an absent-minded breakfast because it forces her to think about the inevitable: she’s starting school today. Late. And not in a cool, I-went-on-an-extended-vacation way, but a I’m-the-new-kid-and-no-one-knows-me kind of way. It’d be different if it was freshman year, at least then it’s kind of a reset for everyone. But no, she’s a _sophomore_ and she’s going to be walking into a school where people have probably been friends since Kindergarten.

Harper bites back a groan thinking about school when Octavia and Niylah walk into the kitchen.

Niylah drops a kiss on her cheek and says, “Happy birthday, sweetie.”

Octavia gives her a nod of acknowledgement and practically shoves a gift into her hands; it’s a parcel wrapped in brown paper tied with a piece of twine (which she’s fairly sure is Octavia’s doing) and then covered in cat stickers as an afterthought (Harper’s inclined to think those are from Niylah).

“It’s from me, too.” Niylah chirps. “I just forgot to sign it.”

“Hope you don’t already have one.” Octavia adds.

“You guys really didn’t have to,” Harper reaches for the present after she sets her toast on a plate, but doesn’t hesitate to greedily untie the string and rip at the paper.

When she lifts the lid of the box inside, it reveals… a pot. A black, metal pot. She doesn’t even think it’s stainless steel.

“Wow guys, I, uh actually didn’t have one.”

Niylah grins as Octavia tells her, “It’s a cauldron.”

“Great,” Harper drawls and she knows she’s being a little ungraceful, but really, a giftcard to Sephora would’ve been better. “I can cook some stew now.”

“Actually, that’s not what it’s for.” Niylah says lightly, reaching over to put her hand on Harper’s. “We have something to tell you. There are two realms: the natural and the supernatural, and as it turns out through generations of our family-”

“You’re a witch.” Octavia cuts her off with a deadpan.

Harper is a little taken aback. Sure, she’s not the _friendliest_ in the morning, but she’s not usually outright rude.

“What do you mean I’m a witch?”

“You’re a witch.” Octavia repeats, expression just as serious as before.

Niylah nods in concurrence, “Now don’t worry, it’s not just you. I’m a witch, Octavia’s a witch, your father’s a witch.”

At that, Harper has to laugh. Her dad? Jerry McIntyre brewing potions and riding on a broomstick, that’s one for the ages.

“And I suppose my mom’s a witch, too?”

“No, Karen’s mortal.” Octavia replies, “That’s why you moved in with us, so we could teach you how to wield your magic. It’s a pretty big responsibility.”

Harper smiles more genuinely than she has all morning, grabs her bookbag, snags her toast, and pets the cat, Murphy, before heading for the door. “That was really great guys. For a minute, I really forgot that today was the first of school. But now, I have to catch the bus and prepare for imminent doom.”

She’s chuckling to herself about the fact they even went as far as buying her a _cauldron_ on the walk to the bus stop. Honestly. And she had thought her aunts weren’t funny.

* * *

 

School is a maze of hallways and Harper isn’t really sure where to look for the biology lab. Hell, she’s not even sure where her locker is. Apparently, this school doesn’t do the whole, new student grand tour thing, which she’s kind of thankful for. It’s hard enough being the new kid without someone parading you around going, “Hey look! It’s the new kid!”

She does eventually locate the biology lab by peering through windows and finally finding one with lab stations, Bunsen burners, and posters describing, “Mitosis is…” on the walls.

Right after she notices the poster, she notices the boy standing right next to the window, backpack hanging nonchalantly off one shoulder. He’s cute, with black hair and bright blue polo; he’s chatting with a taller, gangly boy wearing goggles on his head. Harper must be staring too long, because his gaze does turn and meet hers. His lips quirk upward in a shy smile, and Harper is about to match it when a door slams into the boy.

A woman sticks her head outside and shouts into the hallway, “Summers over! Get in.”

Once all the jittery students are sitting firmly in their seats, the woman pipes up. “I’m Colonel Diyoza. Colonel, not Miss. Not Missus. Not D-money. But Colonel Diyoza.” She moves her laser pointer to the projector. “As you can see, you’re all in Biology 1, and unlike your other spineless teachers, I’m not spending the day going over the syllabus, as I assume you’ve all learned to read and can do that on your own. Now, we’re starting with amphibians…”

Diyoza launches into a lecture about frogs that Harper’s surely not going to take notes on, especially not once the cute boy who got body-slammed by the door is looking right at her. He’s sitting at the desk in front of her and actually makes the full 360 to peer at her over his shoulder, even if it’s just briefly. Is he checking her out? Maybe he’s just curious because she’s new.

Harper must be thinking contemplating it too long because she misses it when Diyoza asks everyone to grab a lab partner, and the boy is turning around to speak to her.

He pushes his bangs slightly out of his eyes (Really, who has a bowl cut these days? Not that it isn’t cute. It is. It definitely is.) and starts, “Hey, you wanna-”

“Monty!” A deep voice calls, interrupting. Monty, apparently, turns his attention to a boy who Harper can only describe as tall, dark, handsome, and _intimidating_. He’s wearing a football jersey and leaning over Monty’s desk, flashing a cocky smile. “I’ll be your lab partner.”

“Uh, sure, Miller. Thanks.” Monty replies and flashes Harper an apologetic smile.

Harper’s not annoyed about it. Really.

She’s definitely not annoyed about it fifteen minutes later when she’s got a dead frog in front of her and her lab partner, Emori, is rambling on about where they should start the dissection.

“Hey, you okay?” Emori asks when she realizes Harper isn’t paying attention.

Harper fidgets slightly in her seat. “Yeah, it’s just… I think my lab partner got stolen.” She gestures over to Monty. “It’s not a big deal – and you’re great, obviously!” Harper backtracks instantly, realizing she just told her lab partner she’d rather have a different one. “It’s just that I’m new, and lab partner theft isn’t really how I wanted to start the year.”

“Totally get it,” Emori nods, “I came in half way through last year. Everyone already had friends and lab partners and I was just… extra.”

“So, new kid to former new kid,” Harper replies, “do you ever feel like you don’t fit in?”

It only occurs to Harper that she’s just asked the girl with the ginormous face tattoo that question after the fact.

“Only all the time,” Emori rolls her eyes. “But I don’t want to fit in. You know, I looked it up, and people who are weird are way more likely to be successful later in life. Think of all those rich computer software developers, they were never popular in high school. Whereas, I look at Miller,” Her gaze shifts to Miller, who’s still flashing flirty smiles at Monty while he cuts into their frog, “I see tragedy.”

Diyoza takes that moment to come around and check on their station, only to realize Harper and Emori haven’t even touched a scalpel yet.

“Girls, less talking, more cutting.” She shoves the scalpel into Harper’s hand.

“Gross,” Harper murmurs, finally getting a good look at her dead frog. “I guess we have to do this, though. I think his heart is somewhere around here?” She points to the frog’s chest and feels a weird pulse run throughout her finger.

Suddenly, the little guy springs to life with a loud, “Ribbit!”

Harper screeches, because honestly, the frog might be scarier alive than when she thought it was dead, and then the frog is leaping off their tray and onto the floor.

“Colonel Diyoza!” Emori calls. “Ours isn’t dead!”

Diyoza curses and begins to chase the frog around the room and suddenly everyone’s stopped caring about their own dissections in favor of watching a forty year-old woman scramble after a frog.

Monty catches her eye right after Diyoza topples over a chair that gets in her way. He shoots her a quick grin, and this time, Harper gets to return it.

* * *

 

She enters the gender-neutral bathroom after biology because it’s got the shortest line. Well, no line at all, really.

She recognizes Miller, who’s hanging by the sink and laughing with some guys in fellow football jerseys.

“Can we help you?” Miller asks, all snark, once he realizes she’s there.

“Just wanted to wash my hands.” She holds up her carefully painted acrylics. “I did have to hold the frog after Diyoza caught it.”

He steps aside so she can have the sink and is about to turn back to his friends when he seems to reconsider. “I saw you talking to Monty. I think you should know he’s a little out of your league.”

Harper snickers. This wasn’t what she was expecting on her first day. All she wanted was to get through her classes alive, maybe make a friend, not get in a war over some boy she didn’t know. No matter how cute a smile he has or how pretty his eyes are.

Still, she can’t help biting back, “Well, at least I don’t wear my ex-boyfriend’s football jersey because I’m not over him.”

For the first time since she met him, the smug grin is off Miller’s face, replaced by a shocked expression. “How did you know that?” He grits out. His football buddies are looking at each other in wonder.

And suddenly Harper’s brain is short-circuiting because _she doesn’t know how she knew that_. She knew she was mad at Miller, she knew she wanted to burn him and that just tumbled out of her mouth.

Tossing her paper towels in the trash and beelining for the door she chokes out, “Uh… lucky guess!”

“Wait.” Miller stops her before she can leave. “From now on,” He meets her eyes menacingly. “You use the freak’s bathroom.”

The way he turns on his heel is so pretentious, she can’t help miming him in hand motions. She’s out the door so fast, though, she doesn’t see that when she leaves, his jersey mysteriously starts tearing itself into shreds.

* * *

 

Harper tosses her bag onto the floor with a _thud_ the moment she enters the long hallway of her old Victorian house and wastes no time rushing up to her room to collapse on the bed.

Some first day.

It’s not like it was all bad, she did meet Emori, who she genuinely likes, and even sat with her at lunch. (She even got the nerve to ask Emori about her tattoo, to which Emori replied, “I like weird things. I _love_ weird. I _bask in the glow_ of weird.”)  Other than Diyoza, none of her teachers really piled on the work, so that was good too. But for the life of her, she can’t stop thinking about Miller. How stupid is she to go and make an enemy on day one?

She can feel a fuzzy nudge at her foot and peers down to see Murphy’s jumped up onto her bed.

“Not now, Murphy,” She says, slightly kicking him off her.

“Harper?” She hears Niylah call. “Are you home?”

“Yeah!” Harper shouts back.

Before she can blink, both her aunts are standing in her doorway, arms crossed.

“How was your day, sweetie?” Niylah asks.

Harper plasters on a smile. “It was great.” Because really, what can her aunts do about the fact she’s already been labeled a freak?

“Here.” Octavia says, dropping an overly large, brown book next to Harper on the bed. “It’s a present from your dad.”

Harper eyes it suspiciously. “Great. It goes perfectly with my black pot.” She can’t help the sarcasm that creeps into her voice. “You guys know a Sephora gift card would have been fine, right?”

Weird gifts aside, it is a book from her dad, and she can’t help herself from opening it. The first pages tell her the book is called _Discovery of Magic_ , and it’s not hard for her to guess that it’s a matching gag gift with her aunts’ “cauldron” stunt. Her family tries hard, but they are pretty weird.

She flips to a page that’s bookmarked, and staring back at her is a black and white photo of a man identical to her father, but dressed in a thick coat and a top hat.

“Guys, look!” Harper exclaims, gesturing for her aunts to come over. “This guy looks just like dad!”

Octavia smirks in response.

“Surprise!” The book responds. “It is your dad. Happy birthday, Harper.”

It’s one of those high-tech recordings, and the picture in the book even moves. She can’t believe her dad put in the effort to get one of these advanced greeting cards; he hardly ever deals with technology.

“Wow, can it say anything else?” Harper asks her aunts.

“What do you mean?” Niylah asks.

“Well, it’s one of those fancy voice recording greeting cards, right? Does it just say happy birthday or is there more to the message?”

“I’m not a greeting card.” The book pipes up. “I’m in the other realm.”

“Other realm?”

“Niylah, Octavia.” The man in the book’s voice turns stern. “I thought you said you were going to tell her she’s a witch this morning.”

“We did.” Octavia says sharply. “Your daughter doesn’t believe us. Wonder where she gets that stubbornness from.”

“Harper, honey,” The man – her dad? – begins, “You should listen to your aunts. You’re a wit-”

“Guys, seriously?” Harper slams the book closed. “Look, the joke was funny this morning, but I don’t need to be distracted anymore and you can’t honestly expect me to believe I’m a witch. I know you guys haven’t spent much time with me since I was little, but I’m not eight years old anymore. I’m not gonna fall for this kind of thing.”

Harper sighs as her aunts exchange a look, one of the ones where they think she can’t tell they’re silently communicating, but it’s _so_ obvious.

“Look, I have homework.” Harper sits up in her bed. “Would you guys mind giving me some time alone? Except you, Murphy, you can stay.” She scratches lightly behind his furry, black ears.

“And what makes you think I’d want to stay with you?” The male voice is deep and dripping in sarcasm, and it certainly didn’t come from Niylah or Octavia’s vocal chords.

Harper stares down in horror at the black cat sitting primly on her bed.

“Did the cat just talk?”

“Yes, now can you get back to scratching? You missed the good spot behind my left ear.”

So, Harper does the first thing she can think of. She screams, high pitched and squeaky, and runs down the stairs to the first open room she sees, the guest bathroom, and locks the door.

A talking cat. A cat that talks. Murphy, her cat – well, her aunt’s cat, and it was _talking_. He sounded like a grown man, too. Was he a grown man, or just a cat? He’d definitely been in her room while she was changing before, oh God.

She’s considering whether she needs to threaten the cat’s life for peeping on her when the rapping at the bathroom door starts.

“Harper, come out, please!” She hears Niylah say.

“Open the door.” Octavia demands.

“No!” She can hear herself sounding childish, but she’s pretty sure she just heard a cat talk and that her dad is stuck in a book, so she can’t seem to care at the moment.

“Harper…” If Niylah didn’t sound goddamn pitiful, Harper wouldn’t open the door, but she does, so Harper cracks the door open inch by inch to meet Niylah’s puppy dog eyes.

“I know it’s hard,” Niylah starts, “But you are a witch. It’s just a part of you.”

“I can’t be a witch,” Harper replies softly. What are the kids going to say about her now? It’s probably already circulating the school that she’s a freak thanks to Miller, does she actually have to _be_ a freak on top of that?

“Well, you are.” Octavia’s got none of Niylah’s subtlety.

“You’re special,” Niylah clarifies, giving Octavia a pointed glance that reads _don’t freak her out_.

Harper groans and stick her face into her hands. “But I don’t want to be special; I want to be normal!”

“We understand.” Octavia replies, “But that ship has sailed.”

Harper walks past her aunts with a mission to trudge herself back up the stairs to her room. Talking cat be damned, she’ll throw him out of her room if she has to.

“Wait, where are you going?” Niylah asks.

“To pack, I’m going to live with my mom.” Harper replies haughtily.

“You can’t.” Octavia places a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. She always forgets her aunt is freakishly strong. “If you lay eyes on your mother in the next two years, she’ll turn into a ball of wax.”

“ _What?!_ ” Harper screeches.

“It’s how they discourage mortal-witch marriages,” Niylah explains, at least having the decency to look sheepish.

“But my parents are divorced.”

Octavia shrugs, “Rule’s still in place. So, unless you want a mother who doubles as a candle…”

Harper’s mind is still reeling as her aunts steer her toward the kitchen table, and it almost feels like an out of body experience as she plops down on the wooden chair. Like she’s observing someone who happens to be a witch, not that that someone is her.

“How about we test some magic?” Niylah offers, placing an orange down in front of her. “We just have to focus on the good parts of this. You’re going to love being a witch in no time.” She grins.

“Magic is simple,” Octavia explains. “Just concentrate and point. Think about what you want to happen, and it will. Try it. Turn the orange into an apple.”

And it’s crazy, absolutely fucking insane, but Harper’s got nothing to lose at this point. And so she points. And thinks. Over and over in her head, a mantra as she stares at the orange: _apple, apple, apple, apple, apple._

And then the fruit is shifting, growing until it pops up into a burst of yellow and green. It’s a pineapple.

“Apple, pineapple, that’s really close, Harper.” Niylah encourages.

Octavia snorts, “No, it’s not.”

“Try again.”

And so she does. Sixty-seven times to be exact. She’s turned every fruit and vegetable they own into a pineapple, and some of their starches, too. Even the pop tarts she was saving are pineapples now, which is a real shame.

“Maybe, we should take a break,” Niylah says gently, laying a hand on her shoulder.

“You don’t say?” Murphy quips from where he’s taken up residence on the kitchen table.

Harper frowns because she _still_ hasn’t gotten it. “Just one more try. Murphy into apple,” She points at the cat.

“Nooo!” He exclaims and runs out of the room.

“We’ll try again some more tomorrow.” Octavia tells her. “Now, go to your room, didn’t you say you had homework?”

Harper groans, but complies. She’s a witch and she still has to do homework? Unfair.

* * *

 

Emori meets Harper by her locker the next morning at school, which is sweet. Emori seems like she could be a real friend, and it’s been a while since Harper has had one of those.

“I’ve got a joke,” She says, as Harper grabs books out of her locker.

“Hit me with it,” Harper responds.

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Doctor.”

“Doctor Who?”

“Exactly.”

Harper rolls her eyes. “That’s so nerdy.”

“So, you don’t watch Doctor Who?” Emori asks.

“I didn’t say I don’t watch it, I just said it’s nerdy,” Harper replies sagely.

“Then get your ass to class, nerd.” Emori replies with a smile.

* * *

 

Class doesn’t go as well as planned, as it turns out. Mr. Kane gives a history pop quiz, and honestly, it’s the second day, Harper doesn’t know when the Battle of Gettysburg was fought.

She’s bitching about it to Emori when something bright red collides with her forehead. It stings like a bitch and Harper grasps at her forehead and rubs the bump she can feel forming. Obviously being a witch hasn’t helped her reflexes.

“I’m so sorry, are you okay?” Harper opens her eyes to see Monty rushing toward her, grasping a Pokeball in his left hand.

“Did you throw that at me?” Harper asks incredulously.

Monty’s eyes widen and a blush forms on his cheeks. (Harper wishes it wasn’t so endearing.) “No, I just brought it to school. _Jasper_ is the one who chucked it.” He glares over to where the lanky boy who was wearing goggles yesterday is leaning against the lockers. Jasper sends them a cheerful wave, which Monty responds to by flipping him off. “He just grabbed it from me and yelled, ‘Gotta catch ‘em all!’ and then threw it.”

“Well, if I was a Charizard, I’m sure that would have been super effective,” Harper deadpans.

Monty grins back at her. “Well, I’m not eating with that asshole.” He clutches his Pokeball to his chest. “You guys want to grab lunch with me?”

“God yes,” Emori pipes up. “I’m starving.”

The three of them end up with trays full of what Harper thinks is mac and cheese, but more clearly resembles yellow mush. She doesn’t trust the milk either, so she just grabs a water bottle. Now, she’s kind of wishing she had one of those pineapples she conjured because it’d probably taste better than this.

She’s pushing the spoon around, speculating if taking a bite is worth it when Monty speaks. “I forgot to introduce myself before. I’m Monty, by the way.”

“I know,” Harper replies without thinking. “I mean-” She stammers and her eyes widen because did she really just admit that? “I know, I heard someone say it in biology yesterday.” She’s praying her cheeks don’t redden as easily as she thinks they do. “I’m Harper.”

“Ehmawi,” Emori says, mouth half full of mac and cheese.

“Emori,” Harper clarifies.

“You guys are the ones who had the live frog yesterday, right?” Monty asks and they both nod in response. “Man, that was crazy. Made the fact Jasper got frog juice all over my jacket seem a lot less exciting.”

“Jasper seems, uh… interesting,” Harper says delicately.

Monty nods, not phased. “He means well, really. We’ve been friends forever. I think we met in the first grade when-”

“Monty,” A smarmy voice cuts him off. Well, Harper thinks it sounds smarmy. The smile Miller’s wearing is certainly smarmy. “I’m having a party at my house this Friday, can you make it?”

Monty blinks in response before replying, “Uh yeah, I should be able to. Did you invite Jasper?”

“Of course, man. Everyone cool is coming.” Miller looks pointedly at Harper and Emori. “Well, I guess that’s it.”

As he turns, Miller turns his lunch tray downward and the contents spill straight onto Harper’s blouse. The pink of her shirt is stained yellow and from the smell, Harper knows she was right. The milk _was_ spoiled.

“Whoops,” Miller says nonchalantly, “Sorry about that.”

Harper does little better than suppressing a growl and wipes herself off with a napkin. She meets Millers eyes and grits out, “You did that on purpose.”

He cocks his head. “Prove it.” Not that he gives her a chance, because he starts to walk away, back to his football buddies who are all huddled at a table in the corner of the cafeteria.

“Stop!” Harper calls. “I’m not finished talking to you!”

It’s not like Harper thinks much of the little movements her hands make usually. When she thinks of an idea, sometimes she snaps. When she sees a friend, sometimes she makes finger guns at them. When she knows the answer to a question in class, she raises her hand. And when she’s mad, she points.

She’s pointing at Miller when the room starts to shake like a high level Earth quake, except they’re in Massachusetts and that makes no sense.

“Under the tables!” Someone calls, and everyone crawls underneath surfaces, except for her because she can’t seem to stop pointing, and Miller, who’s transfixed where she’s pointing at him.

Suddenly, she feels a pulse runs through her finger and sparks fly from her hand, hitting Miller square in the chest. Then, Miller’s not there at all, but a pineapple is sitting right where he had been.

The quaking stops, and students emerge from underneath the tables.

“Where’d Miller go?” Monty asks.

Harper shrugs and gives the most unconvincing laugh she’s sure she’s ever head. “Dunno!”

She makes a run for it, grabs the pineapple, and scrambles out the door.

She _needs_ to find her aunts.

* * *

 

She’s not really sure how delicately she needs to handle the pineapple she’s holding, seeing as it is a person. Obviously, she can’t let it get squashed or anything, but it is Miller, so would it be the worst thing if he got a little bit bruised?

“Niylah! Octavia!” She calls as she steps through the threshold of the door.

“No, but may I offer my services?” She looks down to find Murphy at her feet.

“Where are my aunts?”

“I’m actually quite a powerful witch myself, I bet I could help you-”

“Where. Are. My. Aunts.” She grits out, crouching down to eye level with the cat.

He hisses in her face. “Upstairs, but don’t come crying to me when they can’t fix your mess.”

Harper rushes upstairs, narrowly avoiding stepping directly on Murphy’s tail.

“Niylah! Octavia!” She calls again.

“In here!” A shout replies from inside their bedroom.

Niylah is sitting cross-legged on the bed holding a hand of cards, while Octavia is sprawled out across from her, also with playing cards in her hands.

“Five aces,” Octavia says, throwing down her cards.

“No way!” Niylah huffs, “You cheat.”

“Nuh uh,” Octavia replies, all sass.

“I _hate_ being a witch.” Harper announces her presence with a simple, but true statement.

Niylah turns her head to see Harper standing in their doorway clutching a lone pineapple. “What happened?”

Harper thrusts out the pineapple in response.

Octavia raises an eyebrow, “You conjured another pineapple?”

“It’s _not_ a pineapple,” Harper seethes. “It’s the most popular boy in school and I turned him into a pineapple!”

Octavia lifts herself off the bed and walks over. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” She pulls a switchblade out of her back pocket. “Chunks or rings?”

“Octavia!” Niylah exclaims, snatching the pineapple from her wife. “Harper can’t seal her spells yet, we can just undo it.”

Octavia smirks, “Yeah, but my way was more fun.”

Niylah sets the pineapple on the floor and raises her hands in concentration. “The popular boy is not a fruit.” She chants.

With a harsh pop, Miller is sitting on the middle of her aunts’ bedroom floor, right on top of their antique rug. He peers around in confusion until his eyes lock onto Harpers.

“W-what am I doing here? Why am in your house?”

Harper scrambles for a lie. “I invited you over and you came after school.”

“I would _not_ ,” Miller shakes his head. “No, I was somewhere else… I can’t remember. But it was cramped and it smelled like Hawaii. You did something to me.” He scooches away from her and scrambles to his feet. “You’re even weirder than I thought you were, and I’m going to make sure everyone knows it.” He says, voice still half full of fear as he runs out the door.

Harper collapses on her aunts’ bed and screams into the nearest pillow. She can’t help a few tears escaping her eyes. “My life is over. It’s over.”

Octavia pats her shoulder awkwardly, “He’s just one boy with a crazy story. No one will believe him.”

“He’s a _football player_ ,” Harper replies, “No one has more credibility.”

Ever since Harper found out she was a witch her life has been nothing but awful. She flunked a pop quiz, got a giant welt on her head from a Pokeball, and now she just fucked up so badly that entire school is going to know she’s a weirdo. She desperately wishes it was yesterday; she just wishes she could go back…

“Can witches turn back time?” Harper yanks her head up suddenly to meet her aunts’ gazes.

“…Not alone,” Niylah says.

“Oh, you can’t be serious.” Octavia glares at Niylah.

“She could appeal! It doesn’t hurt to try.” Niylah replies.

Harper will take any chance at this point. “Try what?” She asks desperately.

Octavia sighs. “A single witch can’t turn back time, but together, multiple witches can. You can appeal to the Witches Council for a time reversal request, but they almost never give them out. Only in extreme circumstances.”

“This is extreme!” Harper nods furiously. If she doesn’t reverse time, her entire school is going to know she’s a freak, and that sounds pretty extreme to her. “How do I get to the Witches Council?”

“It’s ten thousand lightyears away.” Octavia says matter-of-factly. “But there’s a shortcut through our broom closet.”

“We have a broom closet?”

“Yes, it’s where we keep our brooms.”

“Can we ride brooms?” Harper asks.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Octavia says, guiding Harper down the hallway towards the broom closet she hadn’t known existed. “Vacuums are much more high-tech. They go faster, too.”

Octavia shoves her into the closet, and more than anything, it’s just a dark closet full of brooms and a few mops.

“Aren’t you coming with?” She asks her aunts as they start to close the door.

“No, we can’t,” Octavia says, “And they’ll respect you more if you go alone.”

“Good luck!” Niylah calls, and suddenly the door is shut completely.

The room is pitch black; she can’t even see the silhouettes of the brooms anymore. She hears the thunder before she sees the lightning crackling around her.

When it stops, she opens the door to an entirely new world.

Clouds. She’s standing on clouds. They’re white and fluffy and she could just lean down and touch them if-

If she weren’t here to plead her case to an all powerful jury of witches.

Harper’s head snaps up and her eyes connect with a brunette at sitting at the end of a long table. She doesn’t know what she expected to find, maybe long robed old men with excessive facial hair, but she’s face to face with a woman who looks to be in her mid twenties with warm eyes and a high ponytail.

“Is this the Witches Council?” Harper asks tentatively.

“Yes, but you don’t seem to have an appointment.” The brunette replies.

“State your name, age, and request,” The blonde sitting in the middle pipes up. “We’ll see if we can fit you in.”

“I’m Harper. I’m sixteen. And I’d like to turn back time.”

“Denied.” The blonde replies immediately.

“Oh, come on!” The brunette says, drawling out the _on_. “We don’t have any other cases today. We can hear her out, right?”

The blonde bites her lip slightly, contemplating, but ultimately says, “Okay.” She turns to look at Harper. “State your case.”

Harper rambles out her story a mile a minute.  “Well, I didn’t fit in the minute I got to my new school. The most popular boy in school has it out for me because he thinks we like the same guy. And he kept throwing jabs at me and then at lunch, he spilled milk on me in the cafeteria, which may not seem like a big deal, but I was already so wound up with being new that I accidentally turned him into a pineapple. My aunts turned him back but now he thinks I’m even more of a freak than he did before, and he’s definitely going to tell the whole school and you know that could actually be pretty disastrous for witch-kind if you think about it because he could, like, expose witches to everyone. You don’t understand the kind of influence he has at my school. He-”

She’s wrapping up her tale when her eyes finally survey the man at the end of the panel on the other side of the blonde. She had been so preoccupied with getting to plead her case, she didn’t even realize she was looking at a familiar face until now.

“ _Uncle Bellamy_?” Harper questions.

He smiles sheepishly. “Hi, Harper.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Well, I’m on the council.” He gestures to the women beside him, “This is Clarke,” He points to the blonde, “And Raven.” He gestures to the brunette.

Clarke frowns. “You know this girl?”

“Yeah, it’s my niece, Harper.”

Clarke gapes in response. “And you thought you could stay on this case and be impartial?”

“Oh, like you and Raven were so impartial when we judged Finn.”

“That’s a completely different situation! It’s not comparable.”

“ _Oh please_ , princess…”

The Witches Council is bickering about Harper in front of her, and it really would seem like the weirdest thing if Raven didn’t catch her eye.

“They’re like this all the time,” She clarifies while Clarke and Bellamy are still fighting. “It won’t last forever. One, two days tops.”

“ _Two_ _days_?”

“Well, yeah, this isn’t that big of an argument. Once, they went at it for an entire week during a case; I timed it. Seven days and twelve hours.”

It’s just so weird to see Uncle Bellamy bickering with this girl; she hasn’t seen him much growing up, admittedly, but when she has, he’s always been sweet and doting. He read her to sleep with old mythology books when she was younger and he always brought her a present when he came to visit.

She must look conflicted about it because Raven adds, “Don’t worry about it. It’s just how they are. They’re always fighting.”

As if summoned, Clarke and Bellamy whip their heads around and shout in unison, “We are not always fighting!”

Raven snorts. “Oh no, I think I’ve made them mad.”

Clarke huffs and crosses her arms, not wanting to look at either Raven or Bellamy at the moment, so she turns to Harper. “We’ll get back to you about the case as soon as we can. You’re free to go.”

Harper wants to say more about _why_ she should get to turn back time, but the dismissal and the tone in Clarke’s voice is enough for Harper to turn and walk back through the door from which she came.

Harper doesn’t doubt that witch could easily turn her into a frog.

* * *

 

After she strolls out of the broom closet, which is still weird, she walks downstairs to find her aunts cuddled together on the couch. Octavia has a book in one hand and Niylah is snuggled in to her side, but has her eyes trained on the television.

“You didn’t think to tell me Uncle Bellamy was on the Witches Council?” Harper announces her presence with a deadpan.

Octavia doesn’t lift her eyes from the book. “Would it have done any good?”

Harper sighs. “Probably not, he spent most of the time I was there arguing with some girl named Clarke.”

That gets Niylah’s attention, and she snaps her head away from the TV. “Oh! They’re such a cute couple,” she says with a soft smile.

“They’re dating?” Harper exclaims.

“Married, actually.” Niylah clarifies. “For thousands of years. Did you know Caesar actually officiated their wedding before the whole stabbing ordeal? Definitely the best wedding of that millennium.”

Octavia frowns and turns her head to Niylah, “But we got married that millennium.”

Niylah shrugs. “You dragged me to the nearest church and yelled at the priest until he married us.”

Octavia scoffs. “Out of _love_.”

As if the universe decided she hadn’t had enough of bickering couples for the day, her aunts start arguing about the degree of romance their wedding held, and Harper has no choice but to seek out the only other person… well, sort of person, that she can talk to about this.

She finds Murphy on her bed and plops down next to him.

“Murphy,” She starts, “Do you think the council will turn back time for me?”

He licks one of his paws. “I’m the wrong person to ask. Sentenced to one hundred years as a cat, and for what?”

Well, that at least confirms to Harper that he wasn’t always a cat. But she doesn’t know why he’s a cat now. “I don’t know, for what?”

Murphy sighs dramatically and stretches out in true catlike fashion. “Well, like anyone, I dreamed of world domination. I was going to rule the entire world. Witches council wasn’t too happy about it when they found out. The cat thing was Bellamy’s idea.”

“It’s not that bad,” Harper rolls her eyes, “You have like zero responsibilities.”

She’s pretty sure being a high school outcast is worse than being a house pet, but Murphy doesn’t seem to agree.

“I can’t play poker anymore; I can’t even hold a deck of cards. Do you know how good I was at poker?” He asks, voice wavering and thick with emotion.

“Murphy?” Harper asks. “Do you want your rubber mouse?”

“Please,” He responds with as much dignity as he can muster.

Okay, so maybe being a cat is slightly worse than being a high school outcast.

* * *

 

The next morning, Harper, Niylah, and Octavia are gathered around the toaster, staring intently.

“And the mail is just going to come out of the toaster?” Harper asks, for probably the thirtieth time.

“Yes,” Octavia snaps, “It comes out of the toaster. Why do you think you kept finding paper in there?”

“Well, if it’s going to come, it’s got to come soon, school starts in twenty minutes.” Harper’s on the verge of biting her nails. She needs the response; she needs to know if time is going to revert for her, or if it’s the end of her young life as she knows it.

The toaster dings, and a letter pops up out of the slot. Really, this does explain why there was always bits of paper stuck in it when she tried to make breakfast.

Holding her breath, Harper opens the letter.

_Request denied._

“I didn’t get it.” Harper says, dejected.

Niylah rubs her arms gently, “I’m sorry, honey.”

“It’s okay,” Harper sighs, because she kind of expected this to happen. She turns to Octavia. “So, I don’t have to go to school today, right?”

* * *

 

Apparently, she does have to go to school because she ends up strolling through the front doors a mere twenty minutes later. Her aunts aren’t nearly as sympathetic as she wishes they were.

Harper expects all eyes to be on her, for Miller’s word to have spread, but weirdly, she doesn’t think anyone’s even noticing her as she walks down the hall.

Emori’s leaning against her locker when Harper reaches it, and that makes it a little easier to breathe. At least now she won’t have to face the taunts alone. She has a friend.

“Hey!” Emori says in greeting. “I’ve got a joke.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Knock knock.” She starts.

“Who’s there?”

“Doctor.”

“Doctor who?” Harper’s voice lifts in question. “You told me that one yesterday.”

“Uh, no I didn’t.” Emori snorts. “I just heard it on the bus this morning.”

It’s the best statement Harper’s ever heard. If Emori told the same joke as yesterday, but only heard it this morning that means… it must be yesterday. She wants to shout it at the top of her lungs. _It’s yesterday! It’s yesterday!_ She doesn’t know how, but Harper got her do-over.

Mr. Kane gives her a grin on the way out of class a few hours later, and Emori gives her a jealous glance and a shove once they’re out the door. “How the hell did you do so well on the pop quiz?” She questions.

“I guess I’m just good at history,” Harper finds it hard to hold back her smile.

She’s still chatting with Emori when she hears someone yell, “Gotta catch ‘em all!” and this time Harper is prepared. Her hands reflexively fly up, and she catches the plastic Pokeball before it hits her in the face.

Monty jogs over right on cue. “I can’t believe you caught that. Impressive.”

She hands him back the Pokeball. “This yours?”

“Yeah,” He blushes, just the same as yesterday. Or today. Time is reset, and Harper’s a little confused about how to refer to that. “My idiot friend Jasper threw it, not me. But at least you caught it in time, right?”

“Right,” Harper replies.

“Hey, do you guys want to grab lunch?” Monty asks.

Emori and Harper exchange looks. “We’d love to.”

They all get the mac and cheese again, and Monty and Emori are discussing some comic series they’re both into when Harper snags her chance.

“Hey, do you guys want to come over to my place on Friday and watch a movie?”

“Netflix?” Emori asks. “I’m down.”

“Same,” Monty grins.

Harper’s done it just in time, because Miller takes the moment to walk over and lean his elbow down on the table next to Monty. “Hey Monty,” he winks for added emphasis, “I’m having a party Friday night; you’ll be there, right?”

“Sorry,” Monty shrugs, not seeming too apologetic. “I just made plans.”

Harper can’t resist gloating, so she turns to Miller. “Bummer! And I bet you wanted everyone cool to come.”

His glare might actually intimidate her if she couldn’t hear Emori holding back a laugh and feel Monty smiling at her. She’s got friends now, and she’s not going to let Miller get to her.

Maybe a new school won’t be so bad after all.

* * *

 

“I love being a witch!” Harper exclaims as she rushes through the front door when she gets home. “Why did the council change their mind?”

Niylah smiles at her niece, “Octavia went to the other realm and had a few… words with her brother.”

“I threatened him with violence,” Octavia clarifies, a deadpan as always, and Harper can’t tell if she’s joking or not. She really needs to get a better grip on her aunts’ senses of humor.

“Well, _whatever_ happened, the teachers think I’m smart now.” Harper grins. “My friends think I’m cool, and they’re coming over to watch a movie on Friday! Woohoo, I’m normal! Gotta go tell the cat.”

Harper’s starting to think she can make this whole witch thing work for her. She’s got time to figure it all out.


End file.
